by Brian Harmon
Olivia thought for a second, not sure. She was so hungry. “Anything,” she said at last. “Two of anything.”
Andrea smiled and began to speak the order. Olivia had told her as they walked away from Gilbert House and through the trees toward the much less mysterious Prophett house that she’d been trapped in there for two days and needed something to eat. Had it been her, she would have wanted four of everything. She ordered three large meals—she, too, had missed dinner that night—and then added three more hamburgers. “What kind of soda?”
“Diet Coke,” Olivia replied, not looking up. She was watching Wayne wrap the gauze around her arm. That hadn’t been pretty. It was easily worse than the bite mark on her shoulder, but it would heal okay. The hardest part was going to be explaining all the scars later.
“Regular, please,” replied Wayne. He wasn’t hungry, but he was terribly thirsty.
The voice from the speaker box confirmed their order and gave them their total. As Andrea pulled forward, she glanced up at the mirror in time to see Olivia slip her arms into the too-small jacket and pull it closed over her plump bosom. “You got busted up pretty bad, huh?”
“She’s a trooper,” Wayne said, smiling at her. He was leaning over her lap, trying to get a look at the bite she’d sustained through her shorts without much success. It was too high up on her thigh to push her shorts leg up.
Olivia was amused by Wayne’s handiwork. He had used almost an entire roll of gauze to wrap her arm. One would have thought that she’d been bleeding to death. And now he was fairly determined to have a look at her leg, although she clearly hadn’t bled through her shorts. He wouldn’t have even known it was there if she hadn’t told him that it was the only other place she hurt.
A young man with a crooked nose took the money from Andrea and returned her change without glancing at the disheveled couple in the back seat.
“I’ll be all right,” Olivia assured Wayne. “It’s just sore. Probably bruised. I’ll look at it when I get home.”
Wayne nodded. He wasn’t happy about it. He’d rather have taken a look at it, just in case, but he wasn’t about to ask her to pull her shorts down.
Andrea received the sodas one at a time and handed a Coke and a Diet Coke back to her passengers.
Olivia saw that Wayne was still looking at her thigh and assured him again that she would be fine. “How about you? Did you get hurt out there?”
Wayne gave her a little smile. “A little. I’m just worried about you.”
“I’ll get some food in me and be just fine,” she promised. “Thanks to you.”
Wayne felt a blush creeping up his face again. Why wouldn’t he have done what he did for her? Was it really so surprising? Would so few people have done the same? He lifted his left foot and began to examine it. It was filthy, of course, almost black from walking barefoot through the Wood, and there were several small cuts on his heel and toes, but nothing as bad as he’d expected to see. The way they hurt, he was surprised he hadn’t grated the skin completely off.
“Does it hurt?” Olivia asked.
Wayne saw the concern on her face and smiled a little. “Not really,” he assured her. “Just sore from walking so much.” And he supposed this was the truth. They really didn’t hurt all that much. Not compared to the throbbing in his arm.
“Poor thing.”
“I’ll be all right.”
The kid with the crooked nose returned with their bag of food and passed it through the window to Andrea, thanking her in a gruff and rather unconvincing voice.
Andrea ignored him. She removed her hamburger and fries from the bag and then handed the rest back.
“Thank you so much,” sighed Olivia. She had to resist the urge to snatch it from her hand. She was all at once maddeningly aware of her rumbling stomach.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m not really hungry,” said Wayne.
“Eat something anyway,” Andrea insisted.
Wayne did not reply. He was examining his other foot. There was a loose flap of skin dangling from the bottom of his big toe. The flesh beneath it was stinging considerably, now that he had noticed it.
“Where are we going now?” Andrea asked.
Wayne looked up at Olivia. “Where do you live?”
“On campus. In the Cube.”
Wayne nodded. “That’s where.”
“Okay,” said Andrea and started forward again.
Wayne hiked up the sleeve of his oversized coat and looked at the bite mark there.
“Oh my God!” Olivia hissed.
Wayne’s arm was covered with blood from his wrist to his elbow. The creature that bit him did more than leave a neat row of holes. It had gone a long way toward actually tearing a chunk out of him.
“You’ve got to go to the hospital!” Olivia exclaimed. “That’s terrible!”
Wayne shook his head. “My friends might need me,” he insisted. “I can’t spare that much time.”
“Look how bad you’re bleeding!”
“It’s okay. It’s stopped now. It’s not as deep as it looks.” The gash was big, he saw. Whatever bit him had done so with its mouth stretched wide, but the wound itself was indeed fairly shallow. “It got me through the sleeve,” he added, realizing that this had probably saved him from having half his arm chewed off. Looking at it now, he realized that the one that got him must have had almost all its teeth. He remembered the broken line of teeth marks on Olivia’s shoulder and thought that it was just his luck to get the one with good oral hygiene.
Olivia stared up at him with terrified eyes.
“I’ll clean it up and bandage it. I’ll be fine.” He smiled at her. “Besides, you won’t go to the emergency room.”
She furrowed her brow at him, a gesture that he found almost irresistibly cute. “Touché,” she replied with as much indignation as she could muster toward him.
Andrea had adjusted her rearview mirror to see what they were doing. In the passing streetlights, she could see the blood that caked his arm. “What happened to you guys?”
As Wayne doctored himself, cleaning the wound as best he could and then bandaging it, and while Olivia finished her meal, he told his story to them both. He began with the letter he received while doing research in the college library. He told them about Gilbert House and how he met Albert, Brandy and Nicole, about his short temper with Beverly Bridger and his long trip underground by way of the service tunnel behind the field house. He told them about the Temple of the Blind and its rooms of lust, hate and fear. He told them about catching Beverly following them and about their encounter with the man with no eyes, who demanded they relinquish their clothes. He told them of Beverly’s tragic fate and about the City of the Blind and its Sentinel Queen. He told them about the Road Beneath the Wood, the old man who gave him the cloak he now wore and the nightmare he found in the black forest outside Gilbert House.
Andrea and Olivia both listened intently, fascinated by the things that he said.
Chapter 19
The three of them sat in Andrea’s Neon in the southern parking lot of the Cube as Wayne finished his story. While he talked, he finished dressing the bite mark on his arm and then tended to other, smaller wounds that he’d collected, very few of which required bandages. When he opened the cloak to have a look at a particularly tender spot on his left side, Olivia and Andrea had both gasped a little at the sight of his naked body underneath.
Andrea could not believe that such things could possibly exist in this world. Men with no eyes, women with no faces, scores of undying corpses endlessly struggling to escape their world to that of the living, whole rooms of statues capable of instilling such emotion that those who looked upon them could become completely consumed by their own primal desires. It was all so incredible. And it was all captivating.
Olivia felt as though a light had just been turned on in her life. Suddenly, the events of the past two days made a little more sense to her. It was no longer just senseless torture, but a string of incre
dible events in which she had played a part. She had no reason at all to doubt the truth of Wayne’s story. If there existed living corpses and shape-shifting monsters built of the dismembered body parts of the dead, then a woman with no face and a man with no eyes and an entire city far below their feet were nothing to her imagination.
When he was done talking, Wayne looked up through the window at the four identical buildings that comprised the Cube. He had lingered long enough. Too long, for all he knew. His battered body needed the break, but somewhere far below these streets, Albert, Brandy and Nicole must be miles ahead of him.
“We should get going,” he said.
And yet he found himself reluctant to part from her. After all he’d been through, he didn’t want to leave her behind.
Olivia dropped the last few bites of the burger she’d been eating back into the bag and balled it up, finally full. She’d managed to eat three whole burgers and most of a fourth, as well as all of hers and Wayne’s fries. She hoped like hell that he didn’t think this was how she always ate.
Wayne turned to her. “Want me to walk you back to your room?”
Olivia nodded. “I’d like that.”
The two of them stepped out of the car and walked to the nearest of the four buildings while Andrea waited behind the wheel.
Olivia used her key to enter the front door and then led Wayne up the stairs to the fourth floor and to the door of her room. “Would you wait here for just a minute?” she asked.
He nodded, curious.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside. As she pushed the door closed behind her, a lamp came on in the room.
“Olivia?” Misty Redler was Olivia’s roommate. She had a skinny face, close-set eyes and kinky, black hair. She was sitting up in her bed, her face filled with concern. “Where’ve you been?”
Olivia shook her head, not wanting to waste time with explanations. “Are you dressed?”
Misty looked down at herself as though she needed to check. “I’m in my pajamas,” she replied. “Why?”
“I’ve got a friend with me. Can he come in?”
Misty considered for a moment, not really sure. “I guess so. Where were you? You’re mom called yesterday. I didn’t know what to tell her. I just said you hadn’t been around much.” Her eyes swept over the too-tight sweatshirt jacket she was wearing and her dirty face.
“If she calls again, just tell her I’ve been spending time with a study group for Accounting. I’m okay.” She opened the door and let Wayne in. “This is my roommate, Misty.”
“Hello,” Wayne said. “Sorry to disturb you.”
“It’s okay,” Misty said. She was looking at his filthy hair, bare feet and ugly coat.
“I just need a quick change of clothes,” Olivia said.
“What?” Wayne thought he must have misheard her.
“You’re leaving again?” Misty asked.
“Don’t worry about me,” Olivia told her roommate. “I’ll be fine.” She opened her wardrobe and pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and some clean undergarments.
“Wait a minute,” Wayne said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m coming with you,” she replied, as if the question were ridiculous.
“You can’t go with me. It’s dangerous down there.”
“What’s he talking about?” Misty demanded.
“Nothing. It’s complicated.”
“I almost didn’t get you out of there,” Wayne said, ignoring the other girl. “I’m not taking you back.”
She turned and faced him, her clean clothes clutched to her chest. “You risked your life to save me and you’re going to risk your life again to help your friends. I’m not going to let you go back down there alone. It’s just not going to happen.” She stared at him with a gaze that was as firm as granite. “Besides,” she added, “you’re taking Andrea.”
That would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so serious. Wayne looked away from her, frustrated. “I don’t like it.”
“Tough. Andrea said she was waiting for both of us. She said there’d be two of us coming up out of that cellar. That means I’m as much a part of this as you.”
“She said she was waiting for two of us,” Wayne corrected her. “She didn’t say she’d be going with two of us.”
“You need me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I’m not letting you go without me.”
Wayne didn’t know what else to say. He met her eyes again. He could see tears shimmering in them. She was utterly determined. “I still don’t like it.”
“I didn’t really like your plan about running headlong into all those zombies, either, but I didn’t argue.”
Wayne did not reply. She’d trusted him with her life back there. And all she was asking was to not be left behind now. But he only wanted to keep her safe.
“Zombies?” Misty asked. “Are you guys on drugs?”
Olivia ignored her.
“Fine,” Wayne said at last. “If you have to.”
“I do.”
“Then get some older underwear. You’ll probably lose those.”
Olivia looked down at the clothes in her hand, surprised.
“Olivia!” Misty exclaimed.
Olivia rolled her eyes. She’d forgotten about that part of Wayne’s story. Apparently, the man with no eyes demanded that they disrobe and hand over their underwear to draw the hounds away. She exchanged her socks, panties and bra for some that she would not mind losing and then turned back to her roommate. “Misty, if I’m not home in the morning, don’t worry about me. If Mom calls again, tell her what I told you before: I’m spending time with a study group for Accounting. As far as anyone else is concerned, I’ve been spending my nights here the whole time, okay?”
Misty stared at her, unhappy. “Fine,” she replied, but it was clear that she wanted to know more about what was going on between her and this strange-looking guy she’d brought home.
“Thank you.” She walked past Wayne, toward the door. “I’m going to go change. I’ll be back in just a minute. And don’t even think about leaving without me. I listened to your story. I know how to follow you.” She left the room, leaving Wayne and Misty to share an uncomfortable silence together.
“I hope you’re not doing anything weird with her.”
Wayne looked at her, surprised. “Of course not,” he said, but felt as though he were lying. After all, how much weirder could one get than the Temple of the Blind?
Chapter 20
Olivia changed clothes as quickly as she could. As inviting as the showers looked, she did not trust Wayne to wait around that long for her. He already wasn’t happy about her joining him.
But then again, what business did she really have tagging along? After what she’d been through, the smart thing would have been to simply stay home where she was finally safe. But she couldn’t do that. Wayne saved her life. He suffered all kinds of terrible hardships to rescue her. She’d be damned if she was going to let him go off on his own, possibly to face it all again.
Besides, if she was ever going to live with what happened to Andy, Nick and Trish, she needed to find out for herself why places like Gilbert House and this Temple of the Blind existed. If she simply let Wayne walk away and closed herself in her room, it would be like closing the door to the truth. What if Wayne never came back? She would never know what went on down there. She would never understand why such horrible things had happened to her. It would be far worse than risking her life by joining him.
As badly as she wanted to just crawl into bed and try to forget everything that had happened to her, she knew those memories would never leave her. And this was probably the only chance she would ever have at finding closure.
Before changing her panties, she paused to look at the bite mark on her thigh. There was a startlingly vivid bruise there. The two crescent-shaped marks where the teeth had clamped down on her shorts were a deep, purplish black. But it hadn’t broken the s
kin and that was good. Bruises would not leave scars. And she was already going to have enough scars to explain.
Once changed, she stepped into the nearest stall and sat down. All the excitement and the meal Andrea had taken them for had left her needing to use the facilities, but sitting there on the toilet, even in this warm, well-lit room, reminded her too much of the seemingly endless hours she’d spent inside Gilbert House.
It all seemed like a terrible dream now. Everything had gone to hell so quickly.
Trish wanted to leave, she remembered. The place frightened her. It was unnatural. She was convinced from the start that it must be evil, but Andy wanted to see how high it stretched, wanted to climb all the way to the top. He was on his way up the steps to the fourth floor when it happened.
The rest of them had lingered on the third floor. Nick was standing by the steps and Trish was pulling on his hand, begging him to come back downstairs with her. Olivia was farther out in the hallway. She’d had her own flashlight, unlike Trish, and she was about to tell her to come back with her and let the boys explore on their own.
If only she’d spoken sooner.
Could she have saved Trish? Or would the creature merely have murdered them both? Perhaps it was only because they had scattered that the creature never found her. Perhaps she was alive now only because she and Trish went in separate directions.
Was it only random chance that the monster didn’t find her instead, leaving Trish cowering in the dark for Wayne to rescue?
She shuddered at the thought. How close had she come? How fortunate was she to still be alive? How lucky was she not to have taken Trish’s place? Or Andy’s? Or Nick’s?
She didn’t think Nick ever even saw it. It appeared without warning from the shadows behind him. It must have come up the steps. Otherwise, it likely would have killed Andy first.
In a single, bloody instant, Nick’s face was dashed against the wall with a gut-wrenching crack.
And then she was running.
She didn’t even know how she came to be in the second floor restroom. All she could remember was a big crimson stain on the wall where Nick’s face had connected with the bricks and the terrible sound of Trish screaming. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the tank of a toilet with her knees pulled up to her chest, sobbing, trying desperately to dial 911 on her useless cell phone.
